How WFH engineers led to air traffic control meltdown for stranded travellers

A damning report into the air traffic control (ATC) meltdown last summer found that significant delays were caused by engineers working from home.

Nearly 750,000 passengers were affected as planes were grounded across the UK, meaning some travellers were unable to board return flights for more than six days after the initial outage.

The Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) investigated National Air Traffic Services (Nats) which suffered a technical glitch while processing a flight plan on 28 August.

In an interim report released on Thursday, the CAA said it took 90 minutes for a staff engineer to reach the headquarters of Nats, and four hours before anyone at Nats alerted Frequentis – the air traffic control platform provider – of the fault.

Meanwhile, as engineers, travelled to Nats headquarters, thousands of flights were delayed, while £100m had to be paid by airlines in refunds, rebookings, hotel rooms and refreshments, according to industry body the International Air Transport Association (Iata).

Tim Alderslade, chief executive of Airlines UK, which represents UK-registered carriers, said: “This report contains damning evidence that Nats’ basic resilience planning and procedures were wholly inadequate and fell well below the standard that should be expected for national infrastructure of this importance.

“We welcome the committee’s plans for further investigation to provide recommendations so that this kind of catastrophic failure is not allowed to happen again.”

Nats is 49 per cent owned by the Government and 42 per cent by a group of airlines including BA and easyJet. It has come under heavy scrutiny following the outage, while CEO Martin Rolfe has faced calls to resign.

Speaking in December, Ryanair CEO Michael O’Leary said: “It’s time for Martin Rolfe to go.

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“At an annual package of over £1.5m this clown has repeatedly shown he is incompetent. If he won’t quit, then transport minister Mark Harper (who owns 50 per cent of NATS) should fire him.

“These repeated UK Nats system failures are unique to the UK and are not repeated in any other European ATC service. Our passengers want a competent UK ATCH service and Martin Rolfe has repeatedly shown he can’t deliver it.”

However, airlines are also accused of trying to “wriggle out of their responsibilities” when passengers complained of late cancellations and poor communication after they were required to pay up front for alternative flights, food and accommodation.

The inquiry panel found evidence of “misinformation about passenger rights”, with leaflets handed out by some airlines claiming passengers “had to make their own plans to get home”.

It said the “standard approach” of informing passengers of what they are entitled to “is not sufficient”. It recommended the use of loudspeaker announcements and staff circulating in and around airports with “standardised leaflets”.

The panel described the financial cost to passengers as “very considerable”, but noted that the “stress and anxiety” was “at least as serious”.

Several airlines, including Ryanair have called for Nats to be liable for the cost of disruption it causes.

A spokesman for Nats said it “co-operated fully” with the review and would “continue to respond constructively to any further requests to support the panel’s ongoing work”.

It added: “We have not waited for the panel’s report to make improvements for handling future events based on learning from the experience of last year. These include a review of our engagement with our airline customers, our wider crisis response and our engineering support processes.”